The woman anoints the feet of Jesus

Fr Paul reads from the Gospel of Luke (7: 36-50) about the woman anointing the feet of Jesus with perfume.

Fr Paul says the Gospel we have heard today is very much a Gospel about devotion, about repentance and about welcome.

As we hear Jesus say at the beginning the details of the woman’s sin, as the Gospel emphasises ‘her many sins’, are unimportant in the eyes of Jesus.  What is important for Jesus is a heart-felt repentance. For Jesus, that’s all that matters.

The writer of Luke is the Gospel writer who really uses stories, like this one, that talk about the return of sinners.  The contrast to Jesus in this story is Simon, the Pharisee.  Simon is not an evil man but he’s a stickler for observing the law and he is a judge of others.  The bottom line here is that Jesus welcomes sinners.

For our prayer today, Fr Paul says, we might reflect on our own lives, on our own sinfulness, and as we do this we might be mindful of the words Jesus says to the woman towards the end of the Gospel … then he said to her ‘your sins are forgiven, your faith has saved you, go in peace.’